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Probing Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter with Gravitational Waves
- Source :
- Physical review letters. 119(13)
- Publication Year :
- 2017
-
Abstract
- Primordial black holes (PBHs) have long been suggested as a candidate for making up some or all of the dark matter in the Universe. Most of the theoretically possible mass range for PBH dark matter has been ruled out with various null observations of expected signatures of their interaction with standard astrophysical objects. However, current constraints are significantly less robust in the 20 M_sun < M_PBH < 100 M_sun mass window, which has received much attention recently, following the detection of merging black holes with estimated masses of ~30 M_sun by LIGO and the suggestion that these could be black holes formed in the early Universe. We consider the potential of advanced LIGO (aLIGO) operating at design sensitivity to probe this mass range by looking for peaks in the mass spectrum of detected events. To quantify the background, which is due to black holes that are formed from dying stars, we model the shape of the stellar-black-hole mass function and calibrate its amplitude to match the O1 results. Adopting very conservative assumptions about the PBH and stellar-black-hole merger rates, we show that ~5 years of aLIGO data can be used to detect a contribution of >20 M_sun PBHs to dark matter down to f_PBH99.9% confidence level. Combined with other probes that already suggest tension with f_PBH=1, the obtainable independent limits from aLIGO will thus enable a firm test of the scenario that PBHs make up all of dark matter.<br />5 pages, 2 figures; expanded discussion of uncertainties; matches publication in PRL
- Subjects :
- High Energy Physics - Theory
Physics
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
010308 nuclear & particles physics
Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Hot dark matter
Dark matter
Scalar field dark matter
FOS: Physical sciences
General Physics and Astronomy
Astronomy
Primordial black hole
Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics
01 natural sciences
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
0103 physical sciences
Mixed dark matter
Warm dark matter
010306 general physics
Light dark matter
Dark fluid
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 10797114
- Volume :
- 119
- Issue :
- 13
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Physical review letters
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....a4151cd305f4a456bbafe056d897d44c